Php json string object to php array

Question

I've looked at how to decode a string here however it requires the key's be wrapped in quotes and my data doesnt, example:

The below data, is saved in a .txt file, I'm using file_get_contents() to read the files, I do not have control over the below data.

THIS IS MY DATA

"{
 ip : "192.168.1.110",
 startFrame : "1",
 endFrame : "11",
 startedCurrentFrameAt: "1397529891",
 status: "rendering",
 currentFrame: "0"
}"

In php, I want to be able to read this data, and access each key, this is what I've tried:

$arr = json_decode($data, true)['status'];

$arr just returns null, because the key's aren't quoted, is there a work around for this?

I've found many answers to this question, but all have the key's quoted.

• Shankar Narayana Damodaran: Are you generating the JSON or are you getting it from somewhere ?
• Awlad Liton: can you add json generated code also?
• Michael King: From 2.2. Objects An object structure is represented as a pair of curly brackets surrounding zero or more name/value pairs (or members). A name is a string. and from 2.5. Strings A string begins and ends with quotation marks. So those would technically be objects, which json does'nt support. the keys need to be strings my friend
• Shannon Hochkins: @ShankarDamodaran I have edited my question, I'm basically reading a txt file which the data is automatically populated.
• Shannon Hochkins: @AwladLiton I'm not generating the object, it's automatically pulled in through a .txt which I do not create/manage.

Answer 1

Try this

<?php
 function fix_json($s) {
 $s = preg_replace('/(\w+):/i', '"1円":', $s);
 return $s;
}
$data = '{
 ip: "192.168.1.110",
 startFrame: "1",
 endFrame: "11",
 startedCurrentFrameAt: "1397529891",
 status: "rendering",
 currentFrame: "0"
}';
$valid_json = fix_json($data);
$arr = json_decode($valid_json , true);
$status = $arr['status'];
echo $status;

DEMO

• Shannon Hochkins: Please3 read my whole question, I do not have control over the quotes around the keys, unless I use a regex to add them.
• Shannon Hochkins: My object is wrapped in "" not '', why does this matter? It doesn't seem to work unless it's single quotes not double
• Shannon Hochkins: I eventually got this working, it wasn't work because I had spaces in my datakey : "s", I used another expression to remove the any spaces before a semi colon and it worked fine

Answer 2

Use preg_replace_callback() for this.

---

Well what is happening in the code ?

First, the regular expression is trying to find the entries between a space and a : , and then concatenates the quotes around them. Finally, an str_replace() acts a wrapper to fix the JSON braces.

<?php
$json='"{
 ip : "192.168.1.110",
 startFrame : "1",
 endFrame : "11",
 startedCurrentFrameAt: "1397529891",
 status: "rendering",
 currentFrame: "0"
}"';
function cb_quote($v)
{
 return '"'.trim($v[1]).'":';
}
$newJSON=str_replace(array('"{','}"'),array('[{','}]'),preg_replace_callback("~ (.*?):~","cb_quote", $json));
echo $arr = json_decode($newJSON, true)[0]['status'];

OUTPUT :

rendering

Working Demo

Through a file.. (Edit)

<?php
$json = trim(file_get_contents('new.txt'));
//Modifications..
$json = str_replace(array('{','}',':',','),array('[{" ',' }]','":',',"'),$json);
function cb_quote($v)
{
 return '"'.trim($v[1]).'"';
}
$newJSON=preg_replace_callback("~\"(.*?)\"~","cb_quote", $json);
echo $arr = json_decode($newJSON, true)[0]['status']; //"prints" rendering

• Shannon Hochkins: I am still getting null with this, I can't define the $json variable like you have, to try and replicate, would I just write this $json = "'" . $data ."'"; ??
• Shankar Narayana Damodaran: If you are getting that from a text file , simply do ... $json = trim(file_get_contents('yourjsonfile.txt'));
• Shannon Hochkins: newJSON is defined, but if I just return $arr like so: return json_decode($newJSON, true); it is null...
• Shankar Narayana Damodaran: Why in the world are you using return? Are you inside a function or what ?
• Shannon Hochkins: I beleive it's formatting my string wrong, I've just seen in newJSON it's being formatted like so: "{ip"":""192.168.1.110",startFrame":""1",endFrame":""11",startedCurrentFrameAt":""1397529891",status":""rendering",currentFrame":""0"}"

Answer 3

I would do this by using the PHP explode function. Explode is like javascript's .split function, in that it will take a string and EXPLODE it into an array of usable data.

So, something like this should work, but you'll need to remove the "{ and }" on the ends first:

// lets assume that your data is $mydata, for brevity's sake.
$mydata_arr = new Array();
$item_arr = new Array();
$newdata_arr = new Array();
$mydata_arr = explode(',',$mydata); // explode where there is a comma
foreach($item in $mydata_arr){
 $item_arr = explode(':',$item); // explode where there is a colon
 // this gives us keys and values in a the $item_arr at [0] and [1]
 $key = $item_arr[0];
 $value = $item_arr[1]; 
 // reassign these in a new, usable array 
 $newdata_arr[$key] = $value;
}

Now, I know this is crude and inelegant, but I wanted to explain in a way that would help you see what needs to be done in something like English. I hope it helps.

• Shannon Hochkins: I don't know where, but I believe there's an error somewhere, I can't get this to work :(
• Ryan: Have you removed the starting and ending bits? That would mess it up.